In an interview during his visit in South Korean, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told on-site reporters about the government and various agencies working together to prepare a budget for the Singapore economy. According to him, the budget should be strong and suitable first and foremost to the needs of the country’s economy.
With major economies like the US, Japan, and China slowing down, it’s no surprise that Singapore has experienced the same. It might tip onto a recession, though this depends on a number of external factors. Currently, the indicators for Singapore despite the risk having gone up are mixed and unemployment rates remain low.
PM Lee advised against pump-priming stimulus as a solution to this problem. He insisted Singapore should take advantage of the slower economy to increase and improve its efforts at training, upgrading, and productivity improvements.
He added, the markets may not be where they want it to be because of the recent events. Investors want to see what happens on US and China, as well as Brexit. Because of these factors, the Singapore government is preparing for the worst. Nearby countries and their economy could influence the country’s economy and the nation’s leaders refuse to sit and watch as that happens.
One of their safety measures is to prepare for next year’s budget. “Heng Swee Keat as Finance Minister and all the other agencies, are working towards preparing a Budget which will be strong, and suitable to the state of the world and what the Singapore economy needs,” recounts PM Lee.
Korea-Singapore Free Trade Agreement
PM Lee said that both sides cooperated on cyber security. Also, both countries were studying whether they could upgrade the Korea-Singapore free trade agreement (FTA). Immediately after this visit is the expansion of the bilateral air services agreement, which came into effect on November 26.
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